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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25841479">Love Sneaking Up On You</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/dancinginthecenteroftheworld/pseuds/dancinginthecenteroftheworld'>dancinginthecenteroftheworld</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Game of Thrones (TV)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-08-11</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-08-11</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-05 04:36:32</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>3,067</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25841479</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/dancinginthecenteroftheworld/pseuds/dancinginthecenteroftheworld</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>The first time Brienne meets Jaime, she punches him in the face. It only gets weirder from there.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Jaime Lannister/Brienne of Tarth</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>82</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>257</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Jaime x Brienne Fic Exchange 2020, 🎲Thrones But Better Because he sure as hell couldn’t do it</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Love Sneaking Up On You</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">
      <li>For <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/AerynSolis/gifts">AerynSolis</a>.</li>



    </ul><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>This was such a fun exchange to take part in! I hope you enjoy!</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The first time Brienne Tarth meets Jaime Lannister she punches him in the face.</p><p>In her defense, she doesn’t know who he is. Oh, Tyrion talks about his brother all the time, but as far as Brienne knows, Jaime is off in the Summer Isles doing some sort of work for their father. </p><p>So when she hears a thump in the living room of the apartment, followed by a rustling sound, she immediately gets up to investigate. And when she creeps out of her bedroom to investigate and sees a tall man heading her way, well, she reacts without thinking.</p><p>Jaime’s shouts and Brienne’s snarled questions are enough to wake even Tyrion, who promptly bursts out laughing.</p><p>“I thought you said you lived with a woman,” Jaime grumbles. He’s slumped on the couch, clutching a bag of frozen peas wrapped in a kitchen towel to his eye. </p><p>Tyrion’s face falls for a second ,then he regains the strange blank look on his face Brienne has only seen him wear during grad student meetings before. Usually when someone is blathering on about something incredibly stupid.</p><p>“Don’t be a dick,” Tyrion says.</p><p>“Men like have been underestimating me my entire life,” Brienne tells her friend. “I’ve been knocking them in the dust for just as long.” </p><p>“Not a woman,” Jaime mumbles. “That’s an attack …”</p><p>He pauses, eyes sweeping over Brienne’s body. She tries not to turn red or hunch in on herself, but she probably fails. Brienne knows what he’s seeing. All six foot five inches of her, pale skin mottled with freckles, a nose that’s been broken enough times she stopped counting, her too-large lips and a mess of dry, messy blonde hair that’s sticking up in all directions from sleep. An image certainly not improved by the flannel pajama pants so old they’re nearly worn through in places and a faded tee shirt with the Tarth fencing club logo on it. </p><p>Attack dog would probably be one of the nicer things she’s been called.</p><p>‘That’s a bodyguard,” Jaime corrects himself. “A lethal one.”</p><p>“It may surprise you to know that it’s no longer the Age of Heroes, and women can be bodyguards just as well as men,” Brienne informs him.</p><p>Tryion sighs.</p><p>“She’s not my bodyguard,” he says. “She’s my friend and roommate. Jaime, what are you doing here?”</p><p>Jaime looks between the two of them for several long moments. </p><p>“It’s a long story,” he finally says. “I didn’t want to bother you, I thought I’d just sleep on the couch.”</p><p>“If you barge into people’s apartments in the middle of the night, what do you expect other than getting attacked?” Brienne demands. </p><p>“I didn’t think he’d notice!”</p><p>“He’s not the only one who lives here!”</p><p>“Well, I know that <em>now</em>.” Jaime leans his head back on the couch. </p><p>“Can we table that until morning?” Tyrion asks, somewhat plaintively. </p><p>Brienne thinks of all the times her best friend has talked about his brother, the small smile and hint of hero worship in his tone. She’s having a very hard time matching Tyrion’s stories up with the rude, arrogant, obnoxiously handsome man in front of her.</p><p>But for Tyrion, she’s at least willing to try.</p><p>What Brienne doesn’t expect is that Jaime virtually moves into the apartment. He supposedly has his own place, but most mornings he’s on the couch, Tyrion’s geeky throw pillow stuffed under his head and burrowed the crochet afghan Brienne got as a graduation gift from her fencing coach’s wife. </p><p>There’s one morning where Brienne, not thinking, dashes to the kitchen in a towel to grab a cup of coffee and then nearly shrieks when she realizes Jaime is staring at her legs in disgust. </p><p>Look, Brienne knows she’s overly tall and pale but there’s no need to gape.</p><p>Jaime is still staring when she emerges from her bedroom again.</p><p>“You’re very … tall,” he says, his voice still rough with sleep.</p><p>“How observant,” Brienne tells him, and hurries out the door.</p><p>She makes sure she’s fully dressed any time she leaves her room after that, and thanks all the gods that Tyrion insisted she take the bedroom with an attached bath. Due to what he refers to as her modesty complex, although Brienne thinks she’s perfectly reasonable and Tyrion’s judgement is clouded by his streak of exhibitionism.</p><p>The fact that they’re friends is somewhat of a miracle, if Brienne’s being honest. Tyrion had been the RA when Brienne moved into the King’s Landing University dorms, a terrified and overwhelmed freshman towering over everyone else. Especially Tyrion, although his personality is big enough she sometimes forgets he’s a dwarf.</p><p>Brienne hadn’t had many expectations for an RA — the harsh lessons of camp counselors and fencing “mentors” had taught her that the people who were suppose to stand up for Brienne rarely did so. </p><p>But Tyrion had surprised her. He didn’t tolerate bullying on his floor and when Brienne’s first roommate made a life her living hell, Tyrion had been the one to pressure the school into allowing a change — and make sure that the roommate had been the one who had to go through the stress of moving, not Brienne. </p><p>On her side, Brienne had been the one to help Tyrion down after some of the boys on the floor decided overpowering him and setting him on top of a large storage cabinet was a great idea for a prank. She’d tried to preserve his dignity as much as possible, although she wasn’t sure she succeeded. 
</p><p>She’d expected the boys to be gone but that didn’t happen — instead Tyrion had shown up at the next hall meeting, depriving them of the opportunity to gloat and humiliate him, and carrie on as if nothing had happened.</p><p>They’d been friends after that, even after Tyrion graduated and went to work for his father. WHen Brienne had finished her undergrad and decided to go back for her Ph.D, Tyrion had decided to do so as well, finally giving into his dreams.</p><p>Brienne knows people make fun of the odd-looking pair they make, both in looks and personality. But she’s never had a friend so fiercely devoted as Tyrion.</p><p>So she’ll put up with Jaime. With his insistence that he’s not living with them, even when he sleeps on their couch five nights out of seven, when he eats all the expensive chocolate Brienne buys rarely and carefully saves for a special occasion, when he rolls his eyes at the documentaries they watch and when he has a growing stack of boxes with his things stacked against the living room wall. </p><p>“We could get a bigger apartment,” Brienne suggests one morning, frying eggs while Tyrion gulps down coffee and Jaime snores on the sofa. </p><p>“I like this building,” Tyrion says, with a small pout.</p><p>“Well, then tell your brother he can’t move in.”</p><p>Tyrion squints at the living room. “I think it’s too late for that.” </p><p>“Well, we have to do something,” Brienne snaps at him. </p><p>They have to stop talking about it because Brienne has to get to class. </p><p>She catches the two of them whispering to each other later that night, Jaime looking strangely guilty while Tyrion gestures emphatically. Tyrion gets vegetable pizza for them, though, which Brienne always argues for ordering and always loses, and they all eat it while Jaime mocks Brienne with a series of incredulous questions about her workout regime and fencing practice. </p><p>Then he tries to entice her into dueling with a pair of chopsticks he found in the back of a drawer somewhere. </p><p>He’s still on the couch the next morning.</p><p>Brienne feels a growing frustration, not helped by the fact that Jaime has suddenly decided Brienne needs to be sociable. Brienne doesn't know what prompts this — unless it’s about the argument over moving and the brother’s whispered conversation, but if that were the case, wouldn’t Jaime move out or agree to a new apartment? — but suddenly she can’t be home more than five minutes before Jaime is appearing in her bedroom door, wandering in to have inane conversations while she’s trying to read up on the battle strategy of the War of the Five Kings or taking her by the arm and dragging her out to the living room to watch terribly inaccurate historical movies. </p><p>She gets a lock, after she nearly dies from embarrassment when Jaime’s eyes take in the sad reality of her bedroom (she knows it’s boring and not girly, she’s been told) and the pile of dirty clothes, but it doesn’t help much. It just means Jaime stands on the other side, knocking and keeping up a stream of inane chatter until she opens the door. Somehow Tyrion manages to weasel out of these adventures, though he only laughs when Brienne demands he tell her how.</p><p>What makes it worse is that Brienne is beginning to see the Jaime Tyrion has always talked about.</p><p>Yes, he’s obnoxious and inane. But his commentary during movies is often funny and insightful .When  Brienne and Tyrion are neck-deep in their theses, the deadline hurtling toward them, Jaime stops dragging her out for movies and instead appears with cups of coffee and tea and plates of food. When Brienne starts leaving the lock open, the drinks and food begin appearing by her elbow, Jaime as silent as a cat. All that’s left behind is a whiff of his cologne and a few times, a brush of wind that almost feels like a hand stroking her hair. </p><p>It’s bad, because kind, handsome men are Brienne’s weakness. She’s tried to set up walls against it, after realizing that some men will fake kindness to turn her into the butt of yet another cruel joke while others are thoughtlessly kind, not realizing how significantly their actions may be perceived. </p><p>Brienne isn’t sure which hurts worse, deliberate cruelty or being invisible.</p><p>But she’s bad at putting up walls. Tyrion says it’s a good thing that she cares so much about people, but all Brienne can see is the way it tears her heart open again and again. </p><p>It’s nothing, she tells herself, when she finds a cup of hot tea and a plate of her favorite seafood pasta on the desk. She wonders where Jaime found it, she’s been scouring King’s Landing restaurants for years and never managed. Jaime is just being nice to his little brother’s freakish best friend. </p><p>She tells herself the same thing again when she comes home from her final thesis meeting, where Dr. Stark beams and tells her the paper is ready for presentation, and finds Jaime and Tyrion waiting with a bottle of wine and slices of her favorite caramel cake from the bakery down the block.</p><p>“Save the cake for when I actually graduate,” Brienne manages to tell them, pretending she’s not fighting back tears.</p><p>“That’s when we get the whole cake,” Tyrion informs her.  </p><p>Brienne expects things to go back to normal(ish) after that, in the lull between handing in her thesis and her defense, but somehow she still wakes up to find Jaime waiting in the kitchen with coffee in the mornings, and his invitations to movie night now come with the temptation of food. </p><p>Slowly, Brienne realizes that Jaime isn’t just scouring the city for takeout, but actually cooking a good portion of the meals.</p><p>“I didn’t know your brother liked cooking,” she says to Tyrion one day, after he’s finished grading a pile of papers for one of the courses he’s TA-ing. </p><p>Tyrion nearly chokes on his beer.</p><p>“He doesn’t,” he says, when he finally stops.</p><p>Brienne blinks a few times. “But he’s always doing it.”
</p><p>“For you,” Tyrion says, and wanders off before Brienne can demand to know what he means. </p><p>Brienne doesn’t think Jaime would really pull a cruel prank like some of the other men she’s known, not after Tyrion’s stories about how his brother has always protected him from bullies and supported him when he defied their father’s wishes. </p><p>But the idea makes her paranoid, and she can’t help viewing every gesture and comment with suspicion. </p><p>It all comes to a head when she arrives to her thesis defense and finds both brothers there, along with the committee. Unlike some of the other candidates, her defense is sparse — she hasn’t actually expected anyone to show up and doesn't have any snacks or anything prepared for after. The only person from her department who comes is Podrick, a first-year student who has been following Brienne around like a devoted puppy ever since he arrived, for reasons she can’t understand.</p><p>Dr. Stark is glaring at both Lannisters — Brienne knows Catelyn doesn’t like Tyrion, and apparently the dislike extends to the rest of the family. That, along with the unexpected audience has Brienne actually shaking as she goes through her presentation. Her voice cracks a few times, especially when Randyll Tarly pipes in with his pointed remarks, and she knows she’s an alarming shade of red.</p><p>The closed door part of her defense goes slightly better — with no audience and Dr. Stark leveling several sharp asides at Dr. Tarly, Brienne feels a bit more confident. </p><p>Still, her nerves are shot. THat’s the only explanation for why ,when she leaves the room and finds the Lannister brothers and Podrick waiting with a table full of cake, champagne, and other snacks, she bursts into tears. </p><p>Podrick squeaks and almost drops the tray of sandwiches he’s holding. </p><p>Tyrion saves it, and slides it onto the table. </p><p>“What is going on?” Brienne demands, trying to stop herself from crying. </p><p>Jaime looks stricken. “Did you fail?”</p><p>
Brienne blinks.</p><p>“No, I passed,” she says. “I think. They still have to officially tell me.” </p><p>He lets out a sigh that sounds almost relieved and strides over to grab her in a hug before she can escape. </p><p>Brienne pushes him away, and draws herself up to her full height, which has her staring down at him. </p><p>“What is it?” she demands. “What’s the joke? Is this because I punched you?” </p><p>She can’t help looking around, waiting for a sign of someone hiding behind a curtain or something, to witness her humiliation. </p><p>Tyrion starts tugging Podrick for the door. </p><p>“I think we forgot ice,” he says.</p><p>Podrick blinks. “But —”</p><p>Tyrion kicks him in the ankle. “Ice, Podrick.”</p><p>“Right.” The two move out the door faster than Brienne has seen either of them move before, clearly not wanting to be caught in the middle of anything. </p><p>Jaime keeps opening and closing his mouth.</p><p>“What are you talking about?”</p><p>Brienne crosses her arms across her chest, ignoring the way her jacket pulls at the shoulders — it’s not wide enough. Nothing ever is, unless she shops in the men’s department. Which she’s been told is unprofessional. </p><p>“Why are you here?” she asks him. “I understand you’re living with Tyrion because he’s your brother—”</p><p>“I’m not living with Tyrion,” Jaime objects.</p><p>
“Your stuff is in boxes in our living room!” </p><p>“I have an apartment,” Jaime mutters. </p><p>Brienne rolls her eyes. 

“And now you’re here, just —” Brienne waves her hand. “Your brother already adores you, you can’t be being nice to me for that reason, so what’s the joke? Is it a bet or you’d just like to see the freak get humiliated?”</p><p>Jaime blinks several times, like he’s having trouble processing. </p><p>“Well?” Brienne snaps. </p><p>“Why would it be a prank?” Jaime sounds genuinely wounded. “Do you really think I’d do that?” </p><p>“Well, there’s got to be some reason,” Brienne mutters. “Let’s get it over with, then.”</p><p>“I don’t want to do this when you’re upset,” Jaime says. “This was supposed to be nice.”</p><p>“But why?” Brienne knows she sounds a little crazy right now, but nothing about this makes sense. Not one single thing. </p><p>Jaime throws his hands up. “Are you serious?”</p><p>Brienne glares at him. </p><p>“I’m doing this because I like you,” Jaime says. </p><p>“You don’t have to be friends with me because I’m friends with Tyrion,” Brienne says.</p><p>
“That’s not what I meant!” </p><p>
Brienne’s confusion must show in her face because Jaime runs a hand over his eyes and glares back. It makes Brienne suddenly aware that they haven’t really moved out of each other’s personal space. </p><p>“I like you,” Jaime says. “I want to go out with you.”</p><p>“Don’t lie,” Brienne says, automatically.</p><p>Jaime makes a growling noise in his throat. </p><p>“I’m not lying — for fuck’s sake, I”ve been sleeping on your god-awful couch for MONTHS just for a chance to see your legs in those ridiculous pajama shorts! I learned to cook obscure Tarth seafood dishes to try to get your attention!”</p><p>Brienne stares blankly at him. She should say something she knows, but she isn’t sure what. Nothing he’s saying makes any sense. </p><p>“I want to date you,” Jaime says, with exaggerated slowness.</p><p>Brienne blinks.</p><p>Jaime sighs. </p><p>“If you don’t want to, I understand,” he says, and he looks so utterly defeated that Brienne reaches out and grabs his wrist before he can move. </p><p>“I do want to?” she says, and it sounds like a question. She can’t help looking around the room, waiting for someone to jump out and start laughing.</p><p>Nobody does.</p><p>“Are you sure?” Jaime asks, in a tone that’s a lot more familiar than the sadness in his voice a few moments before. </p><p>“I just don’t know why you’d want to date me,” she says. </p><p>“Brienne.” Jaime says her voice in a tone that’s mixed with frustration and something Brienne thinks might be affection. “You’re amazing.”</p><p>Then he’s going up on his toes to kiss her and everything stops because Jaime’s lips are soft against hers, his arms warm around her and she feels like there’s an electric shock going through her. </p><p>“I hope you meant that,” Jaime says against her lips, when they pull apart for air. “Because there’s no way I’m giving up now.”</p><p>Brienne turns red, and she doesn’t even mind when Tyrion and Podrick practically fall through the door, Tyrion clapping enthusiastically and Podrick blushing and telling her congratulations. Or the fact that Dr. Stark looks like she’s tasted something sour when she sees Jaime’s arms wrapped around Brienne’s waist as she gets the news that she’s passed her defense and earned the title of doctor. Or Dr. Tarly’s blatantly disbelieving looks. </p><p>Jaime still doesn’t move out. But it turns out they don’t need a bigger apartment after all.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Needless to say, Jaime's interpretation of events is quite different than Brienne's. </p><p>They do, in fact, continue living in the apartment for a while although Jaime quickly moves into Brienne's room. It works, until Jaime gets Brienne to loosen up and Tyrion gets traumatized hearing his big brother and best friend having sex. He gets some pretty amazing nieces and nephews out of the deal eventually, so it all works out in the end.</p></blockquote></div></div>
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